


He's half my soul

by Tuvieja



Category: The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, M/M, POV Achilles (Song of Achilles)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-08 05:37:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21470914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tuvieja/pseuds/Tuvieja
Summary: Achilles knows that Patroclus has low self esteem, although he’s the best man he’s ever met. He tries to show him how great he is through loving touches and lots of kisses.These are his inner thoughts during the war before and after Patroclus’ death
Relationships: Achilles/Patroclus
Comments: 21
Kudos: 115





	1. Before

**Author's Note:**

> I love Patroclus but he's an unreliable narrator when talking about himself. He was a fucking fantastic warrior and Achilles is horny for it

Patroclus never saw himself properly, I always knew this and tried to change it by telling him all the great things about himself. I told him about this and this and this, yet he smiled and kissed me as he ignored my words, probably attributing them to love clouding my eyes. He didn’t realise that all love did was accentuate what was already there.

He was one of the greatest warriors of the greek army, the fact that he decided to stay behind helping the wounded didn’t take away from that fact. The few times that he agreed to accompany me into the battlefield he was a force to be retconned with. A circle of enemies would naturally form around him, no toryan brave enough to enter within reach of his sword. I kept an eye on him, as if I could ever look away, and took care of those who tried to sneak up on him, using cowardly tactics against a noble fighter like my Patroclus, but he would always see them anyways. 

I loved seeing him in battle. the way his eyes roamed around like a predator looking for his next pray, his arms flexed under the weight of his weapon and drenched in sweat. His armour hid his beautiful chest but it also made him shine among the blood and dirt. His helmet hiding his features but letting some curls escape to flow with each turn of his head.

Those nights I could hardly wait until we both discarded our armours before I was upon him, kissing every inch of skin and having his lips on me. Those nights where we found each other with the same violence as the battlefield, kisses rough as swords clashing and touches burning as the sun upon the skin.

But my Patroclus preferred to stay on the healing tents, he gave every second to helping the other warriors to get back on his feet, to be able to keep fighting, or to go home. He was as delicate with them as if he was dealing with children and those hardened soldiers, while under the force of pain, were no better than. They cried out and clinged to him like babes, and he let them, gently guiding them to lie down as he treated them, applying all the knowledge he acquired from Chiron. I didn’t go into the tents often.

The days Patroclus stayed behind I kept fighting until the last man was done. By the time I came back, he was waiting for me on the comfort of the tent,  _ our _ tent. My Patroclus would undress me with careful hands, kissing the skin as he uncovered it, caressing me and worshiping me as if a god.

Those nights we would go slow, we would take comfort in the other’s presence. Touching and caressing and kissing as if we had all the time in the world, as if there wasn’t a world outside (a war to be won, a prophecy to be fulfilled, a mounting pile of bodies). We buried ourselves into each other and kissed until our breaths became one.

No matter which kind of night, we always fell asleep holding one another and woke the same.

My Patroclus, this beautiful, strong, caring, perfect man thinks little of himself, how could that be? I do not know, but I’ll tell him as many times as I need to about how wonderful he is because I love him and if I’m to be a god then the man I love is something even greater.

He is half my soul, as the poets say. What the poets fail to say is that Patroclus is the part of my soul that has everything good. I have the strength and the violence, he shows me how to use that for good; I have the political power to make everyone listen, he whispers to me how to help those who need it most; maybe most importantly, I have him, and he keeps me humble by reminding me each day that we are still human, that fighting isn’t everything and politics aren’t always about war. 

He’s half my soul, he’s my humanity, and I pray to the gods I never lose him because then… then the world would see what a god without a heart is like.


	2. After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don't hate me?

I was wrong, I always thought he was half of my soul, my companion and part of me. It turns out he was all of it, he was my soul itself, he was my heart and my conscience, he was my humanity and my godhood. Without him, now, I am nothing.

We lie in bed, like so many times before, he is still like never before. His chest rises no more, and his rosy lips are now blue with death. We always slept in each other’s arms and I can’t bear the thought of him sleeping in eternity all alone. I can’t think of him being cold because I can’t reach him, because I wasn’t enough, I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there, it was me

My heart was on his knees, in tears,  _ begging me _ to do something, and I refused him. Now I wonder if that was really when I lost him, not when Hector… I’m the one who refused to fight and, instead sent him, my love, out into the fray. I hate Hector for what he did, he was the one to finish him but I’ve never been one to lie to myself: I’m the one who killed Patroclus. If I could I’d take Hector’s spear a thousand times over, like Prometheus’ fate, having him gut me each day, if only it would bring him back. But it won’t. 

The body beside me is just that, a body. The lips I kiss won’t ever kiss back again, the hands I hold won’t squeeze back, the heart on his chest, mine own, won’t beat another beat. All because I was too proud.

Briseis said that she wished it was me instead, if I wasn’t so broken I’d have laughed, didn’t she see that it was? didn’t she see that, in killing Patroclus I was killed twice over? The body that lives on now is not Achilles, he’s gone with his lover onto Hades. This moving corpse is motion and rage alone.

I’m already dead, and as such, I lie with the dead every night. I hold the one that was me and who was mine, and I talk to him, hopping he hears me. I promise him that we’ll meet again soon.

I’m already dead but I have one more thing to do before I fully follow him.

I swear to him every night, whispering softly in his ear, like I used to whisper words of love, I tell him of how I will kill every single troyan in that accursed city, how I won’t pardon a single one of them, allies or women or children, they will all fall. 

And I know, I  _ know _ , he’d hate that, he was the human part of us, and he would hate seeing the beast I had become, but he couldn’t answer, and this was all Hector had left of us, so he’d have to deal with it.

Some nights, when exhaustion finally pulls me under, I dream I hear his voice, he sounds sad, like he’s been crying. I try to reassure him, to tell him that I’ll be with him soon, but I always wake right before I can reach him and all I have for company is a cold corpse that can say no more words, be it to calm me down or rile me up.

The trojans are all going to perish because they made the mistake of taking away all the humanity I had when they killed him.

* * *

Besides the cot where a man with blond locks lies asleep, with nightmares he can’t wake from, holding onto the body of his long dead lover, stands a ghost. He looks down to the man with tears down spectral cheeks, silent lips mouthing a name over and over, as if trying to wake the other.

All Patroclus wants is for Achilles to live, but he knows his love won’t do it. Now he just hopes he can find solace after going into Hades and finding out that the one he seeks couldn’t make it there. Patroclus prayed Achilles didn’t resent him for not following.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to yell at me in the comments

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments appreciated


End file.
